1964 Awake! - Theocratic Collector.com

diffusion and reading of the Bible, espe·
cially that of the Sacred Gospels. The reli·
gious ignorance that unfortunately exists
among Catholics is owed to a lack of learn·
ing, which is fundamentally acquired with
the reading and meditation of the doctrine
of Christ contained in the Gospels and
founded in the books of the Old Testa·
ment."
Yes, how important it is that the Chris·
tian encourage others to read the Bible
and teach them how to transfonn their
minds in order to conform with the perfect
will of God. Not to do so ,",,'ould make the
Christian useless, empty and insipid. So
declared Spanish priest Jesus Urteaga
when writing on the subject of proselytism
in the September 1963 issue of the maga·
zine Mundo Cristiano (Christian World):
"It is not necessary to present argu·
ments to come to the conclusion that our
life is authentically Christian when it is
apostolic and proselytist . . . If you want
what God wants, you will feel great de·
sires to pull the whole world toward our
Father God-this is proselytism ...
"The world today, as that of yesterday,
that of twenty years ago, demands a di·
rect and personal apostolate by Christians.
"If it is the same to us that a man be
a Buddhist, an atheist or indifferent and
Solving the Thievery Problem
• A witness of Jehovah in Georgia in the •
U.S.A. related this experience at a circuit as- I
sembly: "The business whcrc I am employed )
has in recent months had much trouble with •
theft by employees and also in finding per- I
sons upon whom they could depend. There )
was a ring of thieves that stole about $20,000 /'
worth of merchandise. This has caused much
bad publicity for the firm and has hurt the )
business. Some months ago when an opening /'
occurred, I sent a brother over to fiU out an
application. I told my employer that he was I
a Witness and could be depended on. My em· /'
ployer hired him.
26
'it is up to him,' it is because we are not
very much under God's influence .••
"If the first Twelve would have been as
useless as many of us are, the Church of
Christ today would be only a small histori·
cal remembrance. But they were proselytizers
as God commands.
"Today, Christ asks of all of us more
apostolate and more proselytism ...
"Those that are not proselytizers are
sleeping Christians, useless, empty, insipid
and pusillanimous, without salt and with·
out light. In the eyes of God their lives are
sterile."
Jehovah's witnesses are not empty or insipid
Christians. Their lives are not sterile,
for they are busy talking about God and
his purposes. They produce good fruit for
His honor and praise by encouraging oth·
ers to live by the Biblical standards of true
Christianity. Yet in Spain Jehovah's wit·
nesses are often fined and jailed for so
doing.
More than thirty cases involving J ehovah's
witnesses are still waiting to be heard
before the Spanish Supreme Court. Span·
ish judges will have ample opportunity to
add further dignity to their government by
overruling religious intolerance and taking
a firm stand in defense of religious
freedom.
"A month passed and another opening
occurred. One afternoon my employer
said: 'When I hired this first person that
goes to your church, wasn't there another
member of your group that filled out an application?'
I told him there was, and also
that -there was a third Witness who was interested
in parHime work. He told me to
send him also, because he was thinking about
making changes in the whole warehouse. At
the present time there are three Witnesses
employed at this finn, and in the past several
months the problems that once plagued the
company are no longer a problem."
AWAKE!